


The Swan

by Losille



Series: The Swan Series [3]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: D/s, Dominance, F/M, Gen, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Submission, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-02-02 04:30:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12719697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/pseuds/Losille
Summary: Astrid embarks on a two-week trip to London to serve as her sister’s maid of honor, hoping against all hope she might miraculously run into her Hawaiian mystery man. When her sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law drag her to a production of Hamlet to meet the groom’s best man, Astrid gets the shock of her life. The situation, though, is anything but perfect.Sequel to The Ugly Duckling.





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> There are some difficult issues in here, including themes about body image/self-esteem, mixed in with the family (both well-meaning and mean-spirited) dynamic that make life complicated. Tom is also considered more of a Dominant in this, as he was in TUG, so there will be a play on that. Not full-on BDSM by any stretch of the imagination, just the D/s dynamic. Like… it’s expensive gourmet French Vanilla ice cream, instead of plain generic brand vanilla. This is not a random choice—it is integral to the plot.
> 
> All additional warnings will be listed in each chapter, respectively. I encourage you to heed them if any of these subjects bothers you.

****

**Chapter 1 – Arrival**

Astrid checked off another bullet point on her incredibly long To Do list with a heaving sigh. The list seemed to have taken on a life of its own, growing by the minute with something new to complete, and with too little time to finish everything. In three days, she and her soon-to-be brother-in-law’s best man were set to host a combined hen and stag house party at an idyllic English country estate. She still had three pages of confirmations to make and last-minute reservations to request, and she was already sitting in the hotel in London, days out from D-Day.

Initially, they’d meant it to be a small, nice weekend with old friends and family while getting to know the new. Then the party grew arms. And legs. And a brain of its own, turning into Frankenstein’s sentient monster—the monster of all house parties now slated for a full week with themed days and activities galore from dinners to horseback riding to a rousing game of charades. The charades, of course, was a nod to all the creative people who would be in attendance. They’d undoubtedly be fun to play with, but that, too, had gone from simple after-dinner game to full on production, with props and costumes… that she and the best man had to coordinate renting for the occasion.

Well, that  _she_  had to coordinate renting for the occasion, seeing as the best man was apparently a hot commodity in the world of drama and could not spare much time to the planning of this monstrosity. But it certainly didn’t stop him from making plenty of requests and creating more work for her. No problem there. Sure, Hamlet was an intense play to learn, but for goodness sakes, he would have been easier to communicate with if he’d just divulged his phone number earlier on in the process.

Or, you know, given Astrid his email address without her having to pledge her first-born child to him should she somehow become an idiot and let someone else have his private contact information. In fact, she wouldn’t have thought twice about keeping the information private, but after he made such a huge deal about it, well, she was liable to let something slip.

Just to teach him a lesson.

Astrid checked the time on her cell again, deciding she couldn’t make any more calls tonight. It was already six, and no one would be picking up their calls this late on a Saturday anyway. Besides, she had somewhere to be tonight—though she did not want to go. Her loathing of Shakespeare aside, the last thing she considered a fun use of her time was three or four hours in an auditorium watching the reason why she’d been left to do all this damn work on her own flounce around a stage.

She needed time to get ready, in case they ran into anyone important. Mostly, she worried her mother might worm her way into the show and look down her surgically altered nose if Astrid looked anything less than perfect. Even so, Astrid knew she’d never be “perfect” in her mother’s eyes, so long as she carried around a few extra curves. Never mind that Astrid had spent the better portion of the last year and a half at the gym improving her fitness, though not losing the weight her mother considered a family blight. She still hoped motherly acceptance would come eventually, if she tried just a little harder.

The other reason for her attention to detail, though, had nothing to do with that. Astrid applied the extra sassy crimson lipstick and spent more time than normal on her newly dark brunette-colored hair because she wanted to look good should she, by some crazy twist of fate, happen across the handsome Englishman she’d met eighteen months ago in Hawaii. They hadn’t exchanged information to keep in contact—they made sure to limit it to that one wonderfully hot, toe-curling night they spent in each other’s arms—but that didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about him.

A lot.

Okay, like,  _all_  the time.

Like while she taught her kindergartners their math lessons. During parent conferences. Making dinner. Cleaning her apartment. Even when, at the nursing home she volunteered at, she watched the cute elderly couple walk down the corridor together with their gnarled hands entwined.

She especially remembered him late at night, all alone in her bed when she touched herself. Or when other men touched her, or at least tried to touch her. None of them made her feel like him. None of them ever would.

In her heart of hearts, she’d known this would happen, even as they had fucked while watching each other in her rental condo’s bathroom mirror. Somehow, she knew he’d spoiled her for any other man, that he’d make it difficult to forget him. 

Unfortunately, she had not been wrong.

But what was the probability of running into one man out of about nine million? Not to mention the fact he might be gone, somewhere in some far-flung location, like Hawaii, doing God knew what. He could be fucking someone else right now, for all she knew, with the memory of her nothing more than a fond notch on his bedpost.

Worse, she could be nothing at all.

Astrid grumbled and shut her eyes for a brief moment, pushing away the negativity, giving herself a silent pep talk. She refused to think like that. Doing so would create a huge backward slide into the headspace she’d been in on that slippery Hawaiian cliff two Spring Breaks ago.

She gathered her purse and coat, wrapping the latter around her shoulders and buttoning the buttons. The chill in London had already shocked her this morning when she’d touched down in the foggy city; it was still sitting at the mid-to-high one hundreds back home, drenching everyone in sweat. While the weather was a nice respite, her body had yet to acclimate to the change.

Downstairs at the tiny boutique hotel that sat just across the street from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art—her destination tonight, a pair of female guests stood together at the tiny reception desk, talking animatedly with the uniformed clerk behind the computer. Both women looked well dressed, as though they, too, were preparing for a night on the town, and both turned to glance in her direction as she entered. It was hard to sneak around with the creaky wooden stairs and high heels.

The clerk grinned from her spot and waved Astrid over to them. “Oh, there you are Miss Petersen! We were just having a chat about the show tonight. I was telling them I’ve been able to watch Hiddleston walk up and down the street thousands of times on his way to rehearsals and shows.”

Astrid smiled at them, though they might as well have been talking gibberish. Of course, it made sense he traveled the street into the main business entrance of the building situated on Gower Street, but she couldn’t really see the fuss about this Hiddleston character. From her short association with him, she found him to be quite impossible; demanding and fastidious. It certainly hadn’t made her want to waste more time looking him up for further information.

Even  _if_  she had ever wanted to, which she didn’t.

“Let me introduce you to Charlotte and Penny,” the clerk said, first waving a hand to the tall, thin blonde and then the short, curvy brunette. “They’ve come in from the states, too!”

“Nice to meet you.” Astrid smiled for them, somehow relaxed to have fellow countrywomen staying at the same hotel. She wouldn’t see them much beyond tonight, but there was an intrinsic camaraderie borne of patriotism that instantly cemented them as new friends.

Both women gave little giddy giggles and joined her. They were adorable and awkward and reminded her of herself; even though she didn’t understand the fervor about this guy, she knew they would at least get along. “I’m Astrid, by the way.”

“Oh, you have to come with us!” Penny said, linking her arm with Astrid’s. “We’re just headed out now. It’s nearly time! I can barely believe it!”

Penny’s excitement was palpable, but Charlotte seemed a might bit more even-keel, exchanging with Astrid an exasperated roll of her eyes as Penny pulled them both to the front door. Astrid laughed, but followed her new friends out the door and down the street.

“When did you get in?” Penny asked. “We’ve been here a few days already, taking in the sights, and we haven’t seen you at breakfast.”

Astrid smiled. “Just this morning. I’m actually in for my sister’s wedding.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Penny said. “Was it just luck that your entry was drawn so close to it?”

“My… entry?” Astrid asked, frowning at the women.

Charlotte took that moment to speak up, her voice surprisingly throaty for a wisp of a thing. “The lottery for tickets. They held one because it’s such a limited run in a tiny theater.”

“Oh,  _that_  entry,” Astrid said, making a mental note to complain to her sister about this. They were wasting a precious ticket on her when another more deserving—and interested—person could have used the seat. “Yes, just luck. The wedding isn’t for a few weeks, though, so I thought I’d make a long vacation out of it.”

It was sort of the truth, but she didn’t want to put Penny or Charlotte off by telling them the whole truth. Especially when they would easily see she wasn’t that excited about tonight.

“We’ve been waiting  _forever_  for an opportunity to see Tom live!” Penny said. “So we both put in for it, and lo and behold, Charlotte got an email that she’d been selected.”

Charlotte laughed. “You might have heard Penny’s squeal all the way from Hoboken.”

“Well, if she lives in Hoboken, then definitely,” Penny conceded.

“Las Vegas,” Astrid replied. “And that was you?”

Both women laughed good-naturedly at the joke. Penny stopped when they reached the theater’s business entrance and pulled out her cell phone. “Sorry, ladies, I have to take another picture on the actual day. For posterity.”

“The other side is prettier,” Charlotte reminded. “You know, where we actually have to go in.”

“I know, but I just can’t not take it. My husband is going to be so annoyed looking at all the photos with me.” Penny snapped about five photos as a black sedan pulled up and a suited chauffeur got out of the vehicle. “Oh my god, who is  _that_?”

Charlotte edged closer, bumping into Penny. The street wasn’t a wide one; there really wasn’t a need to get any closer to the curb to get a better look. But they moved anyway, their excited energy palpable, yet they remained respectful to the passengers. Maybe they thought it would be Hiddleston or someone else in the production, but Astrid knew better. With forty-five minutes to show time, the actors were already ensconced in their dressing rooms and in the midst of their pre-show rituals.

A wistful sigh escaped Astrid’s lips at the thought of pre-show nerves and rituals, remembering how they used to make her feel both queasy but elated, back in the day. Back when she thought she’d be an actor. Back when she  _lived_  and  _breathed_  the stage. Back before those dreams were literally torn to shreds in her mother’s hands.

“We should keep—” Astrid stopped speaking when a blonde head popped out of the back seat, the woman’s arm waving frantically and beckoning Astrid across the street. “Oh! That’s my sister! Tilde! Over here!”

Penny and Charlotte exchanged disappointed frowns, but smiled anyway. She was  _sure_  Tilde had said to meet at the entrance to the theater on the next street over, not at this one. So why was she here?

Not that she had time to really think it through as all one hundred pounds of her sister practically jeté-d across the street and threw her arms around Astrid. For such a tiny thing, she had a lot of power behind her, and it took Astrid a step backward to fully steady herself.

“Oh my god, I’m so happy to see you!” Tilde squealed and stepped back, words quickly tumbling from her mouth. “You look absolutely amazing! What have you been doing? And your hair! I love the dark on you! It suits you… oh, hello, there. That was rude of me. I’m Astrid’s sister, who might you two be?”

Astrid introduced them as her new acquaintances who were also going to the play, Tilde each giving them a good handshake. However, Charlotte stared off into the distance, at the car. The other women turned to see what had enraptured her, finding James unfolding from the back seat with a cell phone pressed to his ear.

“T-that’s…” Charlotte said, waving a hand in his direction. “Do you know who that  _is_?”

James absently combed the fingers of his left hand through his hair as he finished the call on his cell and slipped the device into his pocket. Though good-looking in that classically British way, he wasn’t a stereotypically beautiful man. However, the longer she looked at him and got to know him, she found him more and more attractive. What was more, she completely understood why Tilde had fallen in love with him. But he was just that, her soon-to-be brother-in-law. The brother she never wanted, but was stuck with anyway.  She adored him, of course, but didn’t get the celebrity hype both Charlotte and Penny had.

Maybe it would help if she actually watched television and saw a movie on occasion?

But then again, she had  _never_  understood all the hype and probably still wouldn’t should her viewing habits change. In fact, she made it her life’s mission to avoid anything relating to celebrities, having met too many underwhelming ones in her earlier years. It was, unfortunately, a side effect of her maternal grandfather’s production company, and her mother’s job within the company.

Tilde threw her arm around Astrid’s shoulders and whispered to her, “Security said they’re holding us in a green room until closer to the show, that’s why we came around from the other side. Ben and Sophie are coming tonight as well, so they thought it’d just be easier. And safer.”

Astrid recalled the names, having sent invitations and received acceptances from them for the house party. Clearly, they were also a big deal, if they deserved a holding pen away from the general hoi polloi.  She glanced at her companions and gave them a small smile. “I’m sorry you guys, I have to go with them. They have my ticket.”

“Of course!” Penny exclaimed. “We’ll see you inside, though, right?”

“Yes, drinks are on me afterward, okay?” Astrid said. “I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.”

After readily accepting the invitation, both Penny and Charlotte set off down the street, turning back around only a few more times to look in their direction. She watched them go until Tilde cleared her throat to get her attention.

“Tom fangirls?” Tilde asked.

“I think so,” Astrid confirmed, but said no more.

Tilde laughed and shook her head, looping her arm with Astrid’s and looking at oncoming traffic before pulling her across the street. When they reached the opposite curb, James kissed Astrid’s cheeks and hugged her tightly.

“Welcome to jolly old England!”

Astrid laughed. “I know! Finally, right?”

“I knew we’d get you over here eventually,” he replied, motioning for them to precede him up the front steps of the building entrance. A woman dressed all in black and wearing a headset—presumably some stagehand—stood there with the door open for them.

Tilde nudged Astrid. “And it only took a marriage proposal to do it.”

“Well you know me, I thrive on the dramatic,” Astrid said. “I had to have a  _decent_  reason to brave the cold.”

“ ‘Cause coming to see your sister and furniece was never a good enough reason.” Tilde had said it as a joke, Astrid knew, but she couldn’t help hearing the edge of unhappiness in it. Truly, this was her first trip to England since Tilde had been over here; with Tilde’s visits home on her off-season months, and Astrid’s job sucking up the rest of the time from August to June, she’d never tried to make it work.

But that didn’t mean they didn’t maintain a close relationship via other sources.

She was here now, though, and more than a little excited about it. Giving her sister away to such a wonderful guy was not an event to be missed—nor to skimp on when it came to celebrating their love at a week-long house party. She planned to use all the time she could with her sister leading up to the wedding in a few weeks. Even if her suspiciously absent partner in crime hadn’t helped much in the planning.

The stagehand showed them indoors to a conference room with a long boardroom table and leather office chairs surrounding it. Water bottles and a basket of snacks were set up on a sideboard, but nothing else that would give away the space as a green room. Which meant this was probably hastily put together for the VIPs in attendance. It was strange to be one of them.

“You really do look lovely, Astrid,” Tilde said as they sat together and chatted. “You always do, but you’re like glowing now. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Oh, that’s just my tan.” Astrid shrugged out of her coat and slipped it over the back of her chair. To emphasize her point about the tan, she stuck her arm out and placed it against Tilde’s. “See?”

Tilde rolled her eyes. “No, it’s not the tan. I noticed it a little when we came for our visit for Christmas last year, but now you seem… more…”

“I really hit the gym hard,” Astrid said. “Had to get ready to fit into all my dresses over the next few weeks.”

“You know you didn’t have to—”

Astrid sliced a hand through the air to stop Tilde. Her sister had never cared what she looked like, fat or thin or in between, not that Astrid would ever reach the point of thinness that someone would call her thin. But still. She knew she didn’t need to fret over her appearance for Tilde—Tilde would accept her anyway—but Astrid had made the decision a year and a half ago to be stronger, both physically and mentally. That resulted in gym trips and better eating. Not much lost, but things were definitely firmer.

And, if she really wanted to admit it, her eyes and smile seemed more vibrant when she glanced in the mirror. But that, Astrid often fantasized, wasn’t entirely due to the gym. It was due to the man who had literally rocked her world and hadn’t let her go. Too bad he didn’t know it and she couldn’t show him.

“I’m good,” Astrid said. “Just stronger. I figured I needed to make enough of an impression on James that he knew I could beat him up if he ever hurts you.”

James lifted his head from his phone again. “I’d like to see you try, pipsqueak.”

Tilde laughed. “He’s doughy and ticklish in the middle. Go for that.”

“I am not doughy!”

Tilde shook her head and mouthed to Astrid, “ _He is_.”

“I’ve been stress eating, okay?” James interjected. “This whole thing—the house party, the wedding—has a higher production value than a lot of the films I’ve been in.”

Two months ago, Astrid had listened for over an hour as Tilde vented about all the headaches their mother, the de facto wedding planner, had caused them both, from spending money like it was going out of style to making the day a spectacle of Royal Wedding proportions. Money wasn’t an issue since their mother and father were both footing the bill, their mother had reminded Tilde. Astrid was never going to get married, anyway. Why not splurge? Never mind Tilde had suggested a simple ceremony and luncheon; she ended up conceding on everything just to shut Mom up.

Now, at the end of the wedding marathon, Tilde regretted it more every day. Astrid wondered how much longer it would take for her sister to hit the metaphorical wall—or if Tilde’s perseverance could outlast the wedding.

Fortunately, James’ parents were gracious enough to let the bride’s Momzilla have at it. He, however, must have not been so immune, likely from attempting to keep Tilde sane during the process. Like most grooms, James seemed the type to just want the day over—no matter how it turned out—so he could get on living the rest of his life with his beloved.

Before Astrid could reassure him that he shouldn’t worry, the same stagehand popped her head into the room. “We’re going to seat you in five.”

“Perfect!” James called.

“May I use the ladies beforehand?” Astrid asked. “If it’s too much of a trouble, I’ll wait till we get out front and find the public one.”

The stagehand shook her head and smiled. “Not at all, come with me. It’s just around the corner.”

Right around the corner turned out to be backstage, in the middle of all the hubbub of actors and technicians running around finishing their pre-curtain work. The call for positions was close and the creative energy was high and thick, almost making it difficult to move. She wondered if she could siphon a bit of it off for herself to later use when she needed the pick-me-up the most.

Damn, she really missed the stage.

The stagehand cleared her throat in agitation, and Astrid realized she’d stopped moving on their path. Her face warmed. “I’m so sorry. I just miss it, you know?”

“You’re an actor, too?” the hand asked politely though disinterestedly.

“A long time ago,” Astrid replied around the bitter taste surfacing on her tongue.

Thrust in the door of the ladies’ room, Astrid sighed to herself, trying to gather her emotions. It had been a long time since she’d given into the siren’s call of the stage; usually, she could go to performances with no trouble, but this glimpse of the backstage was too much. Just like watching television and movies were too much, always reminding her of something that could have been, but ultimately never achieved. All because she’d let one woman have too much power over her.

From somewhere else, a deep male voice hummed low and full, measuring up a scale and back down. Then he made a series of inconsequential sounds, lips smacking, tongue movements, warming up the mouth and voice.  It was a pleasant sound, but it too rattled her to the bones—and not only because it also brought her past back to her. There was something familiar about the voice, though she could not place it.

As she went about her business, she listened to him—in what must have been the men’s bathroom next door—respond to the feedback he received from the reverberations of his voice in the tiled room. He hid it well, but he sounded sick. At least, his throat seemed raw. He stopped once to sneeze and cough.

He sang a few bars of some song as she washed her hands. That  _definitely_  wasn’t the best sound, but it had a mournful quality, one so full of emotion that the crackling and breaking in his voice didn’t matter much. Honestly, she was a little impressed as she stepped out the door to the bathroom and looked around for her erstwhile stagehand.

Upon not finding her, Astrid turned on her heels to retrace her steps back to the makeshift green room, only to bang headfirst into an incredibly hard, masculine body. Strong hands encircled her arms to steady her, but pushed her back in haste.

“I’m so sorry!” she squeaked, lifting her eyes to the black-clothed chest in front of her—and up and up to a shaggy auburn beard. Further north her gaze traveled before it landed on a pair of sea-green eyes.  _Livid_ sea-green eyes. What was his problem, anyway? Other than being out of place in the artist’s domain, it was an honest mistake. She hadn’t intended to bang into him.

She pulled out of the man’s grasp, rubbing her arms where his hands had singed a print into her skin. Verifying she couldn’t see the outline of his hands, she then glanced back at him to apologize. If he were truly angry, he would have left her. Instead, he stayed. Maybe he wanted to give her the what for. She knew that because she could feel the radiance of his body heat even a few feet apart. He consumed the space between them with his sheer presence.

She opened her mouth to apologize again, her gaze focusing on the man—the whole man—but the words died on her tongue. Standing before her wasn’t just some random guy. This was the man who flipped her world upside down in Hawaii. 

This man was… an actor. It made sense, if she thought about it. But then her stomach plummeted all the way down to her feet.

_Wait._

This man…

This man couldn’t be…

_Oh, fuck!_


	2. Recognition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no pub across the street from RADA, that’s made up. Thank you all for being amazing!

**Chapter 2 – Recognition**

This wasn’t happening twenty minutes before a show.

He couldn’t believe it. How had this lady slipped past security and gotten this far backstage? How had she found him and singled him out, when he’d been happily hidden in the bathroom doing his voice warm-ups? She definitely didn’t belong back here, in that bright red dress hugging her gorgeous thick frame, accentuating the deadly curve of her hips and the ample cleavage in the deep neckline. Everyone on the production wore dark, muted colors. Not something to stand out like a sore, but fetching, thumb.

This woman wanted to be noticed.

Unfortunately for her, she was not about to be noticed in the way she probably wanted.

She pulled out of his grasp and rubbed her arms where he’d caught her. He hadn’t realized he’d grabbed her so hard, or that his anger had got the better of him so quickly. But fuck, he’d just gotten himself into his character’s headspace, and adding this nuisance on top of it? She fucking deserved it.

With a sigh, the woman lifted her head again, blinking at him. Then the expression on her features froze in a look of horror.  She lifted a hand to her throat and fiddled with the simple silver necklace and tiny circular pendant, drawing his eyes to the piece of jewelry. Millions of women must have worn the same style, but none of them had the beautiful liquid mercury eyes this woman did.

A memory wiggled in his brain—the one he’d squashed so many times that he eventually had to lock it away lest he be forced to revisit the upset every time he thought about it. Hazy as it was pulled from the dark recesses of his memory, it packed no less a punch now as he remembered the woman he only knew as Bront­­ë—the one he’d left in bed while on holiday in Hawaii a year and a half ago.

He’d waited two months for her. For something. Anything. Sure in the fact that he hadn’t been the only one to experience the earth shift so profoundly under his feet.

She never called.

“Brontë?” he murmured, barely audible over the clanging and banging of stagehands and other technicians doing final prep for the show. Was it really her? She’d changed her hair. And she wore makeup. But fuck, if it  _was_  her…

She dropped her arms to cross them against her chest, a protective stance that confused him. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Not now. Now he was confused and wanted answers, the ire bubbling in his gullet partially mollified by the unwelcome surge of testosterone shooting straight to his groin.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. A fetching blush colored her cheeks.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m seeing a show.” Her voice was teasing, almost goading in a way.

He scoffed. “Not what I meant. I mean what are you doing  _here_?” He waved his arms around to emphasize his point, in case she still didn’t get it.

“Oh, backstage?”

“Yes…”

“Bathroom,” she said, pointing with a thumb to the door that led to the ladies’ room.

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

She lifted a brow in mocking challenge and opened her mouth to say something, but a call from behind stopped her.  He spun around, hearing his name, finding both James and his fiancée, Tilde, making toward them, led by a stagehand. Great. Just great. He didn’t need to see them, either, before this show was over.

He looked back at Bront­­ë, but she was already pushing past him, walking toward the other two. She grabbed a coat and a purse from Tilde—he hadn’t noticed Tilde carrying two of both until then—and exchanged a silent, but somehow meaningful, look between each other.

Wait.

Just fucking  _wait_.

“You know them?” Tom asked her, frowning.

James laughed. “Intelligent deduction as always, Tom. She’s Astrid, Tilde’s sister.”

“No, she’s not,” he insisted.

She  _couldn’t_  be Tilde’s sister. Because if she was Tilde’s sister, then there was no conceivable way on this green earth that she hadn’t known who he was all the way back when they met in Hawaii eighteen months prior. He and Tilde were friends. In fact, they’d become close soon after she and James had started dating, now nearly three years ago. It would be weird, he thought, for a friend not to talk about her other friends. Especially because Tilde had confided in him that she didn’t have a ton of friends, otherwise, and told Astrid everything.

But then, now that he thought about it, he’d never seen a photo of Astrid, either. Sure, Tilde talked about her, but nothing had ever made him think her sister was the same woman he’d completely fallen for in Hawaii. The woman Tilde talked about was an actress, loved Shakespeare, and was the most perfect woman to walk the face of this planet.

The woman he thought he knew was a kindergarten teacher, had a serious vendetta against Shakespeare because of some crappy teachers growing up, and now that he had made the connection, did not think she was the most perfect woman in the world. Gorgeous, maybe, but she had lied to him. 

He was pretty fucking pissed about it, too.

Some warning would have been nice. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, even  _if_  she hadn’t known who he was back in Hawaii, she would have known who he was soon after. Surely, when they were first communicating by email about the stag and hen party, she would have looked him up, discovered who he was, and said  _something_. Anything. But she hadn’t.

Had  _everything_  that night been a lie?

He had little patience for liars. He hated truth-stretchers and omitters, too.

And all of this, a mere fifteen minutes before curtain. How was he ever going to get through it all now? She’d shattered his concentration.

But, the consummate showman, he pulled himself together. “I thought she was a fan who snuck past security… my mistake.”

Astrid cast him a glance, blushed again, and diverted her eyes, refusing to look at him. Tilde laughed at them both. “You’ve got one heck of a chip on your shoulder, Tom, I swear.”

“Hey, his worries aren’t without their merits,” James defended, wrapping his arm around Tilde. “We ought to get out there and find our seats, though. Let’s let Tom get himself together.”

He wanted to kiss James for seeing his discomfort, but even his friend’s understanding wouldn’t pull him back down to earth in time for the call for places. Only a miracle would do that.

Tom watched them go, stepping past stage right, around the dark curtains into the main audience. Astrid followed them slowly, carefully stepping around a few A/V wires, and paused again to look back at him. Her crimson lips curled into a small, sad smile as she finally met his eyes.

She mouthed  _I’m sorry_ , and stepped past the curtain so he couldn’t see her. How was it possible to go from goddamn elated that she stumbled back into his life to utterly incensed in no time at all?

Tom glanced at the clock, noting he had just enough time to make it back to his dressing room for a final check of makeup and costume. This time, he slipped in a prayer that the ghost of Shakespeare himself would come back and possess him for this last show. Just one more show… then he could deal with the emotions roiling uncomfortably deep in his belly.

He could do this. He was a professional.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spied his mobile sitting on top of the dressing table. He grabbed the infernal thing before he really thought through what he was doing and pulled up his text messages, locating the one Astrid had sent him earlier in the day, back before he learned Astrid was Brontë. He’d just given her the number via their string of emails about the house party, so she could more easily reach him over the next few days for the errands they planned to run together.

He couldn’t help himself and typed out a message:  _So, this is your number?_

Not two seconds later, it pinged in his hand.

_Yes. I saved yours in my phone already._

He squeezed his mobile until his knuckles turned white. Of course, she probably only put the number in earlier after he’d given it to her—again—via email. But that did nothing to soothe his jangled feelings. What if she had it in there  _before_? To him, it seemed more than likely that was the case. Even if she hadn’t connected everything about Tilde and James, then perhaps she had saved it off the note he’d left her in Hawaii. She’d have to be blind to have missed the note.

And never deigned to give him a call.

The thought ripped through him anew. Had he misread their night together? No, he couldn’t have. He was the man who wanted no entanglements; he had his career to think about and knew entanglement wasn’t something he could have offered at that time. But that hadn’t changed how he felt after the night they’d shared.

A knock at the door startled him, followed by a voice. “Five minutes!”

“Five minutes, thank you,” he replied.  He set the mobile down and stared at it for another second, willing it to light up again with another text. What did he expect her to say, anyway?

Groaning, he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, attempting to center himself. This was going to be harder than any opening night or poorly rehearsed bit he’d ever done. Worse than that play at Eton where he’d played an elephant’s arse for Eddie, and had to do it with a smiling face. The only comfort left to him was the fact that he knew the words like a second language, tattooed on his heart and embedded in his soul.

Hopefully that would be enough.

* * *

 

His miracle came in the crackling of his voice during the solo he sang at the top of the show. Well, perhaps, not in the song exactly, but more accurately when he saw her in the audience, or a flash of her red dress and redder lips against the bright stage lights. Somehow knowing it was  _her_ , that she expected so much from him despite everything, brought everything into focus. The fuzziness cleared from his brain, the static in his ears ceased. And it was only him and her, though he did not proceed with the rest of the play like that. He did, after all, know better.

He knew exactly what he needed to do.

Every line, every action, he felt deep in his soul; the anger wrung him out, true melancholy made his voice crack more than his illness did.  By the end, he felt like he’d torn the beating heart from his chest and set it in the middle of the stage for everyone to gawk at like some circus sideshow. He left everything on the stage.

The prolonged standing ovation was the cherry on top of a hard-fought battle to retain his composure.

And he was utterly exhausted. Too exhausted, even, to receive visits from his friends right after the end of the show. When he finally emerged from his dressing room freshly showered and ready to speak to non-cast people, he felt it. His body ached from overexertion; his throat burned despite the lozenge he sucked on to numb it. All he wanted was go home and sleep it off, forget about the terrible night dealing with troublesome emotions while trying to do his job convincingly.

Ben and Sophie begged off quickly after seeing him, citing their wish to get home to the boys. James and Tilde, on the other hand, kept him a little longer chatting. Astrid, his Brontë, was nowhere to be found.

“You look terrible,” Tilde said. “But you were amazing.”

“Thanks, I think,” he rasped, running a hand through his wet curls.

James laughed. “I think we should let him get home, Tilde… unless you’ve got a party to get to.”

Tom shook his head. Mercifully, the party had been postponed until the following evening, ostensibly to allow everyone to be at full capacity for the appropriate level of comedic roasting and to give more time for drinking, the latter of which was the most important ingredient to any proper cast party.

“Where’s Astrid?” he asked. Why did it matter, anyway?

Tilde chuckled. “She went off to have drinks with a few ladies she met at her hotel. She said to tell you to text her about tomorrow.”

“Right,” he huffed. Didn’t she even have the decency to stick around with her sister? What kind of woman was she that she flew halfway across the world and wasn’t spending as much time as possible with her?

When he glanced at Tilde again, her smile had flattened out into a perplexed expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. “I had just hoped to see her after the show.”

James shrugged noncommittally. “Because the way you were acting earlier—not to mention the email debacle—made her particularly inclined to bend over backward for you.”

Tom shot him a dirty look. James just didn’t know.

Tilde waved her hand anyway and then wrapped it around James’ back. “No worries. I’m sure you’ll work it all out with whatever you’re doing tomorrow.”

“Maybe.”

“And I wouldn’t take it as a personal affront, Tom,” Tilde said. “Astrid was muttering something about finding Mr. Hawaii while she was here. She probably wanted to go off daydreaming again.”

Tom’s heart stopped in his chest, then stuttered back to life. Maybe he’d been wrong? Maybe she simply hadn’t called him because she didn’t think he had meant what he said? Hadn’t he shown her…

“Uh, Mr. Hawaii?” he asked.

Had she shied away because of the lies she’d told him? Or because she’d known him all along and never expected to be found out?

“Oh,” Tilde said in a laugh and a shrug. “Never mind. It was nothing, just some guy she met like a year ago and, honestly, sounded too good to be true. No gorgeous, wealthy man wines and dines an ordinary girl and then takes her back to her place to pull her hair and slap her ass.”

James scoffed. “What am  _I_? Chopped liver?”

Tilde set a hand on James’ chest. “You don’t count. Besides, I pull  _your_ hair and slap  _your_  ass.”

Tom shifted on his feet uncomfortably and cleared his throat. He could do without their overly familiar asides, though it was wonderful to see that real love did exist, even in the cutesy, he-wanted-to-spork-his-eyeballs-out kind of way.

Even less did he want to hear exactly  _how much_  Astrid had divulged to Tilde about the night in Hawaii. Honestly, at this point, he figured he should be relieved that a sordid tale hadn’t been posted somewhere on the web…

“Oh, right,” Tilde said then. “Anyway, the last time we talked before her trip, she said she hoped she could find him while she was here. I love my sister, but sometimes she lets fantasy get ahead of reality a little.”

Except where fantasy  _was_ reality.

Tilde prattled on, “I mean, come on… a night of mind-blowing sex and she has nothing to show for it? If it were that good, then she and the guy would have both felt it and it wouldn’t have been a onetime deal. So either it wasn’t that good and she’s imagining things, like she does all the time, or the guy was a total douche. If he were real, I’d be giving him a piece of my mind for leaving the next morning without saying goodbye.”

And that was enough of that. Tom had heard enough.

James must have seen the way his forehead had furrowed in consternation and gently nudged Tilde. “Come on, my love, we need to head home and let Duchess out.”

“Oh, alright, we’ll see you later, Thomas,” Tilde said. She pulled away from James and headed toward the direction of the exit… without James.

James stood still and looked him up and down a few times, his lips pressing into a grim line. Tom knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Well, your behavior earlier is starting to make sense now.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tom said, adjusting the increasingly heavy rucksack on his shoulder.

“You know exactly what I mean…” James trailed off, meeting his friend’s eyes, “ _Mr. Hawaii_.”

Tom scoffed. “You’re being ridiculous. “

James shrugged his shoulders. “ _She’s_  the ‘beautiful and mysterious goddess’ who never called you?”

“Don’t sound so incredulous about her.”

“Astrid is both beautiful and mysterious, just like her sister; my incredulity has to do with the knowledge that, having heard both sides of this story now, you still got shafted,” James replied. “It seems a bit like a taste of your own medicine.”

Tom loved his friend. A lot. Knew that a well-placed punch to his face would certainly piss off Tilde and the wedding photographers, if not future casting people. But that didn’t stop the incandescent annoyance furling his fingers into fists at his sides.

“You know it has never been like that with my liaisons,” Tom hissed through gritted teeth. He wondered if his jaw would stay there if he clenched any harder. “Look. I’m knackered. I just want to go home and sleep it off. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

“Fine,” James said. “But you better not do anything to fuck up the next few weeks. If my wife cries once about this, there will be hell to pay.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “We’ll be fine. We’re adults. I’ll get over it.”

James huffed. “It’s been eighteen months, Tom. You still haven’t gotten over it. I can see it written all over your face.”

The fact was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be over it. Not now that she was back in his life, even with all the unknowns. He didn’t know what was worse: knowing he left the number and thinking she hadn’t called because she hadn’t felt the same, or knowing that she  _had_  felt the same, but still didn’t pick up the phone to give him a ring.

To give him a chance.

“If you know what’s good for you, go home now,” Tom said.

James turned on his heels and started for the exit, saying as he walked. “I’ll be generous and not mention it to Tilde, but you and Astrid had better make peace as soon as possible.”

Tom looked at the floor and stubbed his toes into it, grinding out an imaginary cigarette. He didn’t know what to do, honestly. “I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry.”

First on his list was getting some much-needed clarification about whether she’d known him from the outset or not. If she did, then there was no need for him to be so twisted up about her, because he wouldn’t try to make something out of nothing. She would have been a liar, then, and he was done with liars. He’d simply play his part for the next two weeks, and they could both move on.

He waited until James disappeared from the building, and then waited a little longer until they were out of sight, before stepping into the chilly night himself. It was late enough that anyone waiting to see him would have gone away by then, but his bodyguard was already there with the car to take him home. A ridiculous indulgence, one he had tried his hardest to do without for so long, but one he sorely needed these days to protect himself.

Tom threw the rucksack in the back seat and lifted a leg to scoot inside the warm interior, but paused when a flash of red caught his eye. He froze, swiveling around to look back in the direction he’d seen it, his eyes carefully focusing on the flash of color.

Astrid sat in the front window of the pub across the street talking animatedly with two women, haloed in the soft yellow light coming from behind her. His mouth went dry like he’d been on a week-long march through the Sahara with no oases to refill his canteens. 

God, but she was beautiful.

And every part of his body suddenly wanted to be close to every part of  _her_  body. Despite everything that had happened that night, there was no denying this truth.

“Tom?” the driver asked, wondering why he stalled.

Tom stepped back outside the vehicle and shut the door. “Take my things home, please. I’ll catch a cab in a little bit after a drink at the pub.”

Faisal, his bodyguard, frowned. “I wouldn’t recommend that. That place is full of people who saw the show.”

Sometimes he hated fame. Couldn’t he just pop into a pub for a drink… or to stalk a woman like a regular bloke?

Tom shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll text if I need back up, alright?”

Faisal grimaced, shook his head, but wave his hands dismissively. “On your head be it.”

Tom couldn’t help but think that was a remarkably poignant thing to say at a time like this, in so many ways. “Good night, Faisal.”

“Night, Tom,” he replied. “Don’t drink too much.”

Before he could stop himself, Tom was already across the street with his hand on the brass door handle leading into the pub.


	3. Coming Home to Roost

**Chapter 3 – Coming Home to Roost**

Astrid was deep into a harrowing story about a foot chase with an unruly kindergartner when all the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck prickled. She quickly tamped down the feeling of unease making her stomach knot. After all, these feelings had been happening all night, since she met Tom. There was no point in giving them any more of her attention, so she continued with the part about how one of the doors to the cafeteria had opened wide just as the kid arrived, knocking him out cold. Even now, the sheer hilarity of the moment made her eyes water with mirth, clouding her eyesight enough that she didn’t notice that neither Penny nor Charlotte were laughing along with her. They stared back at her with stone cold straight faces and wide eyes.

No.  _Wait._

Not  _at_  her, but at a point directly  _behind_ her.

That was when Astrid felt the unmistakable heat on her exposed skin and a large warm hand resting high on her shoulder—a friendly gesture to get one’s attention—before it slid down her spine and stopped at the inward curve of her back. There was no mistaking the innate possessiveness in the touch, or the sudden shock of heated desire that rocketed through her entire body and wrapped around her pleasure centers like a cuddly cat.

She certainly didn’t need to turn around to know who stood just out of sight, a bit behind her and to the right. If Penny and Charlotte’s blanching hadn’t done it, the way Astrid’s body reacted to the touch confirmed everything. Despite their separation of a year and a half, she’d know the feel of his hand on her body anywhere. What surprised her, however, was that it had become  _so_  ingrained in every molecule of her body so easily, so  _quickly_ , one night many moons ago.

“Hello, ladies,” said he, his low, gravelly voice made rougher after hours of vocal gymnastics. Even so, it sounded like warm, sweet honey to hear him speak.

Astrid still didn’t believe this was at all possible, but here he was, standing beside her with his hand slipping from her back to her side. He stepped in closer to her, his dark coat brushing her bare arm, a thigh nudging her thigh on the tall chair. His fingers curled into the fabric of her dress, buried into the sinew beneath, the strength of his arm pressing tantalizingly across her back. The intoxicating scent of fresh soap and shampoo filled her nose.

She wondered if he intended to throw her off with his movements. Make her uncomfortable, presumably in the place she’d put him when they ran into each other outside the bathrooms. He hadn’t seemed particularly happy to see her, but that could have been for one of a million reasons, all of which she hadn’t taken the time to properly consider. In fact, she hadn’t  _had_  time to do so—the play started and completely enraptured her, and then she was off to drinks with her new friends.

Certainly, _she_ hadn’t been immediately happy to realize that the man she’d been lusting over for the better part of two years also happened to be her brother-in-law’s troublesome best man. She’d had a mind to ream him. Not a lot, just enough to let him know just how annoying he’d been during the planning process. She’d never had the chance when they were—possibly serendipitously—interrupted by James and Tilde.

Now, though, she didn’t really care about her lingering anger regarding the house party shenanigans. Bygones were bygones, and there was no point in stressing out about it. Especially since she had what she ultimately wanted—the opportunity to see her Wadsworth again. Maybe a few extra calls for reservations weren’t so bad a penance to pay to remain in his glory.

Honestly, the only real problem that remained between them, in her mind anyway, was the fact that he was an actor and she didn’t date actors. But, of course, they weren’t dating, so that probably wouldn’t matter anyway. Other sorts of relationships could be had with the man, if they both agreed to it. Dating, as it was, was likely already out of the question anyway, even if he’d been some other guy with some other job. She was tethered to Las Vegas ten months out of the year. He was English. Never the twain shall meet. She was fine with that–she simply wanted more time with him in a bedroom. Right?

Was there something else there, though, that bothered him? Had he been upset simply because she’d interrupted his flow? Or was he exactly as he described in Hawaii—looking for no commitment, low-risk liaisons while he was on holiday? And then irritated that he had to see her afterward—even eighteen months afterward—which would require him to confront what they’d shared together?

Astrid nibbled on her lower lip, finally allowing herself to peek at him from the corner of her eye, through her thick lashes. He was observing her with question in his sea-green eyes, but otherwise he was like a sphinx: stony and impassive. Tom looked at the other women and a pleasant smile cracked his lips. He offered his hand to them in turn, clearly introducing himself to the stunned women as they answered his questions.

She heard their voices, but they were muffled, as though she were a few feet below water, the rushing blood in her ears impeding any ability she had to grasp the exact words. Even if she heard them clearly, she felt certain she wouldn’t be able to understand them, for all her brain power centered on that wayward hand now gripping even further around her hip, pulling their bodies ever closer together. There was no friendly intent in his fingers, and only an idiot wouldn’t have seen that.

Astrid had to break free of him just to think straight. She slid off the other side of her bar stool, meeting the resistance of his strong grip, but he ultimately let her slip away rather than make a scene.

“Is everything alright, Astrid?” Penny asked, a look of concern furrowing her brow.

Astrid felt hot, like the world was spinning around. She needed fresh air.  _Cold_  fresh air. “I, uh, I need to get going. It’s been a long day and I have an early morning tomorrow. Good night!”

She grabbed her coat and threw it over her arm, followed by her purse, leaving them all quickly. She knew, though… God help her, she somehow  _knew_  he was hot on her trail. She could feel him behind her, maybe heard a farewell to Penny and Charlotte.

The blast of cold autumn air burned her lungs and made her hot face tingle. She got as far as the next building over and leaned against a stone pillar, sucking in lungful after lungful of fresh air. This wasn’t how she imagined this going. Not in the least. She figured she’d wow him with her dazzling, newfound confidence and they’d pick right up where they left off back in Hawaii. But that wasn’t happening.

It was all too much, like the child who gets the gift they really, really wanted for Christmas, only to nearly stroke out when they finally do receive it. She couldn’t process it.

A large hand—familiar, again—touched her arm. “Brontë?”

She whimpered and looked at him finally, fully, truly seeing him for the first time. Fuck, if he wasn’t still as gorgeous as before, but now somehow more beautiful with a full beard and long curls.

“Hi,” she said, her voice weak.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Astrid nodded. “I’m fine. Just… overwhelmed.”

They stood in silence for some time, allowing her to regain somewhat of a level head and regulate her breathing to an acceptable rhythm. She felt his warmth beside her, close but not overpowering, as though allowing her to acclimate to him. It was a thoughtful gesture on his part, whether he knew he was doing it or not.

Finally, after some time, he spoke. “So, you’re Tilde’s sister.”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “And you’re James’ friend.”

He hummed low, scratching at his beard. “Did you know who I was in Hawaii?”

Straight to the point. She’d loved that about him in Hawaii. There was no guessing. It was nice to know that at least that part of him wasn’t false. But no matter how nice, it now made her uncomfortable. In the real world, with no assumed names and tropical destinations aiding in the fiction they created, she was bare. All the armor had been stripped from her. There was no hiding behind the anonymity of a Spring Break hook-up.

“Not at all,” she said. “Couldn’t you tell I was clueless?”

Tom frowned. “I thought you were, but I find it hard to believe anyone with a family who owns one of the top production companies in the industry would not have more of an idea  _about_  that world.”

Astrid scoffed at him, incensed at his reasoning. Maybe his bluntness wasn’t such an appealing quality standing in the middle of a dark London street. “Did it ever occur to you that the reason I  _don’t_  watch movies or read tabloids or keep track of that shit is due to the fact that I  _do_  have a family who owns a production company?”

His face straightened, again inscrutable.

“Look, I don’t know what Tilde’s told you about it all, but I don’t take part in that life,” she said. “I never will.”

“She said you were an actress,” he accused.

Astrid rolled her eyes. “ _Was_  an actress. Maybe I flirted with it back in college. But that’s as far as it went.”

Sure, it wasn’t the whole truth, but it was difficult enough for her to think about, much less tell him the whole tale. _If_  he ever deserved to be told. At this point, she wasn’t so sure of that. Not with the way he’d cornered her with a critical tone, as though she’d purposely deceived him in Hawaii.

“From my experience, you either are or you aren’t,” he said. “You can’t just switch it off, even if you aren’t actively pursuing it.”

“Well,  _your_  experience was different from mine and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t jump to conclusions about what you think you know.” Astrid pushed away from the wall. If he was going to be like this—the exact opposite of what she’d hoped—then she didn’t need to deal with it.

Tom hummed, looking no less irritated. “And Shakespeare? She said you loved Shakespeare and literally begged me for tickets for tonight?”

“Sometimes things get lost in translation halfway across the world,” Astrid replied. “I’m sure you know about that.”

She could have sworn a flame ignited in his eyes as the rest of his face etched into a deep, foreboding glare. He barked out a harsh laugh. “Don’t I.”

Astrid rounded on him, stepped toe-to-toe with him. “What’s  _that_  supposed to mean?”

“Just what it does,” he said.

She shook her head. “You know, I had this big flowery memory of you concocted in my head. I’ve fantasized about it for eighteen months. Now I know all that tropical sun must have fried my brain into thinking you were different.”

A pregnant silence the size of a giant African elephant filled the space between them. He pressed his lips together in a firm line, appearing as though he was about to burst with what he wanted to say. He opened his mouth, then closed it, shaking his head and looking away, down at the pavement to collect himself. With cheeks puffed out, he released a long, soothing breath.

The moment no less diffused, she knew she had to go back to her hotel. At least, she had to get away from him, so they could both cool down. Come back to this discussion with leveler heads. She turned on her toes in the direction of her destination. She did not, however, get far. A strong hand shot out, circling around her arm before whipping her around to stand before him.

She slumped back against the cold stone wall behind her, partially to hold herself up from the sudden movement, also to get some space from him. If there was one thing she couldn’t manage right now, it was standing so close, smelling him, feeling his warmth or the arcing electricity that somehow appeared any time he touched her.

Not when she wanted to smack him and tear his clothes off at the same time.

“Tell me,” he said, breathing heavily, inching forward, hard thighs bumping hers. The toe of his right leather boot insinuated itself between her parted feet, a knee jarring hers, thick thigh resting against the apex of her legs.

“Tell you what?” she spat.

Astrid clenched her teeth—not particularly from anger, but from something more insidious. With him resting his body in such a way, dominating her, it sent mixed signals spiraling through her body. She refused to give him the pleasure of a vocal affirmation of her current desire with him pressed against her center like that. He didn’t deserve it.

“Was anything about that night real?” he asked.

Astrid drew in a breath. “I just told you it was. I am a kindergarten teacher from Las Vegas who reads all the time, doesn’t watch television or movies or—”

“No,” he said, pressing two fingers to her lips. The shock of his touch made her gasp, to which a wicked gleam filled his serious gaze. “Not about that.”

“I don’t know. Was it real for you?” she retorted.

He moved closer yet, until she could feel his warm breaths on her skin, on her cheek, beside her lips. His body, slighter than it’d been back in Hawaii, but no less imposing, crowded her further. Their chests brushed, then pressed; hips moved slightly against each other, enough that she could fully feel the telltale outline of his erection pushing against her. Anger or whatever he was outwardly showing, that was certainly proof of other things.

“Astrid,” he breathed, letting her name hang in the cold autumn air. She loved her name falling from his lilting mouth. She wanted to hear him say it all the time; she wanted to hear him groan and growl it. He said it again, this time on a breathy, anguished moan. “Astrid…”

She stared back at him. “Tom.”

The corners of his mouth curled just barely, but then flattened again. He licked his lips; she couldn’t control her own tongue from doing the same thing to her lips.

“Why didn’t you ever call?” he voiced, finally getting to his point.

Astrid frowned this time. What the heck? Call him? How…?

He continued, “If you truly felt like that, why didn’t you ever call me?”

“How could I have?” she asked.

His body stiffened and moved away from her, as though shell-shocked by her words. “What do you mean?”

“We both agreed it was a one-night thing,” she replied. “You might have ruined me for all others, but we agreed.”

“But I thought—” He paused his words, and stepped back further, away from her, out of her arms, a gust of chilly air shoving its way between them and chasing away their heat. “I left a note.”

Astrid’s stomach fell to her feet and sprang back up to her throat.  _What?_  The tiny hairs all over her body rose and her skin felt clammy with unease, none of it due to the ambient air temperature. “A… note?”

Tom nodded. “I left it on the dining table. Didn’t you see it? I wanted to talk to you. I left my number.”

“You did?”

She wanted to cry. What the hell? Eighteen months of absolute misery having only the ability to relive their one night together in her head and she could have had so much more? Still, she desperately tried to tamp down her suddenly hopeful, fluttering heart. That was then, this was now. And things were a million times more impossible than they’d ever been in Hawaii.

Now it wasn’t just a frumpy chubby girl and a hot wealthy man in their approximation of a Kindle romance novel. Now it was a woman who wanted nothing to do with show business, and a man who  _was_ show business. It was her brother-in-law’s best man. It was eighteen months’ worth of growth and change in both of their lives that would surely make everything between them different.

Even  _if_  she could attest to the fact that everything her body felt when he’d been so close, pressed against her, was exactly how it had felt in Hawaii. Perhaps, worse, because she knew what it could also do when it was naked, when it was pumping within her, licking, biting and kissing her.

But lightning never struck the same place twice. Right?

Not with this amount of distrust on any one of their parts.

“I… I didn’t see it,” she said. “When I woke up… oh, God! My alarm didn’t go off or I didn’t hear it and I was late. I almost missed my flight, as it was, but I ran around getting cleaned up and dressed and I flew out the door. I never saw it… or if I did, it never registered as something I needed to look at.”

He stared back at her suspiciously, as though trying to suss out the truth from her words. They were the God’s honest truth, whether he believed them or not.

She reached for him this time, laying her hands on his coat-covered arm, then lifted one to his face, cupping his bearded cheek. “Tom, believe me when I say I would have called as soon as I found it, if I’d seen it. I would have.”

His eyes closed and he nuzzled her palm, but he made no attempt to move closer again, or bend down to kiss her. Which was probably a good idea. She didn’t know what she’d do if he tried to steal a kiss. Oh, she wanted him to… she simply didn’t know how she was going to handle it now.

“I made a very stupid personal decision because you never called me,” he said, not exactly to her, but out into the whipping autumn breeze. He seemed to be thinking deeply about something, confusion and pain fleetingly appearing on his stern features. “I waited a few months, and then I lost all hope, and I…”

“You, what?” she asked.

Tom sighed. He backed away from her, out of her grasp. “It’s not important. Not now.”

“But I want to know.”

He shook his head again, now incredulous. “But do you? You already said you don’t want anything to do with my life.”

“I don’t think I actually  _said_  that,” she defended. Thought it, yes. There had to be ways to be together and not have to bring in the Hollywood celebrity bit. Their time in Hawaii was proof enough that. Couldn’t they just have more of that?

Or was he saying he wanted everything? The sex, the dating, the making a life together bit?

Astrid closed her eyes and sighed. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it, to make it happen? But she  _couldn’t_ … she just couldn’t consider all that. She made a promise to herself a long time ago, after she quit acting, never to get back into that lifestyle. She loathed everything about it. She hated what it did to people, how it messed with her life, what monsters it made of her family.

But Tom wasn’t like that, was he? Would he be different?

She opened her eyes, finding him studying her carefully. Finally, he spoke.

“May I walk you to your hotel?”

Astrid knew a brush-off when she heard one. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk any more. She frowned and chewed on her bottom lip. “It’s only two more doors down. I can walk.”

“Alright.” He scratched his neck again and ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then? Are we still on for the errands we have to run?”

Astrid nodded. “Yes, none of that’s changed. We have a lot to do.”

“I’ll fetch you after your dress fitting then,” he said. “Just give me a half hour warning.”

“Sounds good,” she replied, feeling colder than she had after stepping off the airplane without her jacket that morning. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned in the direction of her hotel. But, she paused again and looked back at him. “And Tom?”

He lifted his head. “Hm?”

“You really were fabulous tonight,” she said. “I don’t think I said.”

His chest puffed up a little. A forlorn smile stretched his lips. “Coming from you, that’s a real compliment. Thank you.”

Astrid’s shoulders slumped. She thought she’d turn around and continue on her way, but her feet carried her right back to him. Standing on her tip toes, she threw her arms around his neck, pulling him down the rest of the way to kiss him.

One last time, if that was all she had.

His hands closed around her hips, allowing her only the satisfaction of a brief brush of their lips before he pushed back. “Don’t.”

“I just…” she said. “I’m sorry… for everything.”

The grip lingered long after he separated from her. “Goodnight, Astrid.”

And then he was gone, walking down the street with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, head lowered and watching the ground as he went. She wanted to run after him, to make him stay, but she remained glued to her spot on the sidewalk.

She felt like crying.

This was definitely  _not_  how she imagined finding Wadsworth in London. But, she supposed, her dreams had always been too good to be true.

Gathering her wits, Astrid finally pushed away from her spot on the pavement and headed for the hotel. She needed sleep. Hopefully, once there, she’d be able to forget about this wonderful and horrible night, at least for a little while.


	4. Henpecked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And sometimes, you just have to let a chapter go. So sorry for the wait as always; I am back in school now for another MA, so I don’t know about the frequency of updates, but I am still writing. Thank you for reading!
> 
> Warnings: Liberal use of the “F-word” (fat). Also, really mentally/emotionally abusive mother. You’ve been warned.

**Chapter 4 – Henpecked**

Astrid made it to the dress shop exactly forty-four minutes late for their fitting appointment. To be fair, it wasn’t totally her fault. She’d made sure her alarm was set to the appropriate time, but she neglected to verify that she had plugged the phone into the socket adapter to recharge overnight. Cue the phone dying, leading to no alarm, and the fact that, despite typically being an early riser—she was a teacher, after all—jet lag had hit her full force. Waking up at eleven in the morning London time was akin to three in the morning Las Vegas time. No sane person got up that early, and her body knew it.

Fortunately, Tilde had called the front desk of the hotel and they had transferred her to the room telephone to wake Astrid. Tilde hadn’t been upset, just concerned, and Astrid flew out of bed, running around like a bat out of hell to get ready.

She’d originally planned to wake up a few hours before the appointment to take her time primping, not for Tom later or for herself, but for her mother. She wanted to make the loudest statement she could since this was the first time they would see each other in more than a year. Astrid had in her mind that she’d wow her mother so much with all her grown-up moxie that Beatrice Winthrop-Petersen would have absolutely nothing to make a withering comment about.

None of that happened.

Instead, Astrid contented herself with throwing her hair into a messy bun, and decided to leave her room without a lick of makeup after pulling on what usually constituted her daily school wardrobe: those ridiculously bright—but comfortable—leggings everyone wore and an oversized sweater that almost reached her knees. She made it look like a dress with a belt around her hips, but Astrid knew that would do nothing to avert her mother’s assessing glare.

Or the comments.

Good god, the comments.

Astrid tried to give herself a pep talk while she rubbed the crusty sleep out of her bleary eyes on the cab ride to the dress shop. Well, at least she _tried_  to. There was no escaping the fact that most of the personal gains she’d made over the last year or so seemed to have fled with Tilde’s urgent call; Astrid suddenly felt like the same dumpy girl who ran into that hot guy on a Hawaiian hiking trail. What was more, her mom would look at her like she was still the fat girl she’d fired from a television pilot because, as she said, it was “unbelievable that a handsome character would ever be interested” in someone like her.

All Astrid could do was pray this didn’t turn out as badly as that had.

She stumbled through the dress shop doors and pulled her purse up her shoulder. Shoving a metaphorical steel rod up her spine, she marched toward the reception desk to give them her name. Just as she opened her mouth, a loud, disgruntled huff filled the hollow space and reverberated off all the reflective surfaces of the sleek chrome, slate and white tiled room.  Astrid would know that huff anywhere, that incensed, displeased, how-dare-you-make-me-wait-for-your-complete-subservience puff of air that made everyone in its wake shit bricks.

When Astrid was small, that sound had inspired the most vivid terror, worse than any horror movie she’d ever seen. Pennywise and a possessed Linda Blair? Pfft. Child’s play. Of course, age and maturity made it easier to understand that the scary clown in the storm drains was just an actor and her mother was fallibly human, but the sound of her impatience cut no less deeply. Nor did the knowledge of her mother’s humanness remove the cold fingers of fear that wrapped around Astrid’s spine. Why? Because it was real, and there was no shutting the television off or running away to make the horrors disappear.

“Could you at least  _try_  to be responsible?” Beatrice asked, hands on her trim hips, voice low and terse. Her cold stare sent an unpleasant shiver up Astrid’s back.

Astrid swallowed around the lump of words clogging her throat. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”

One of her mother’s arched brows rose higher. “It’s always a mistake with you.”

“Really, Mother, I’m not going to fight,” Astrid said.

By God, every bone in her body wanted to, but she couldn’t find the will to follow through. Not right now. Not when Tilde was probably in the other room, and they were supposed to be celebrating with her.

Beatrice shifted in her position, stretching her long neck to make herself appear taller and more visually intimidating. Her boney, veiny hands clenched the fabric of her smart grey pantsuit at her slender hips. These days, that at least did nothing to cow the rising tide of anger in Astrid’s belly. Not when she considered how ridiculous her mother otherwise looked standing there in her self-importance.

Being a creature of Hollywood, Beatrice bowed to the mandates of every youth-seeking middle-aged California girl, not limited to bottle blonde hair and a ridiculously intense diet and workout regime. Though, to her credit, her overbaked tan was a gift from the West Coast sun rather than some orange spray. Her face looked the same it had twenty years ago, thanks to a lot of Botox and a gifted plastic surgeon.

Beatrice had grown up a dancer, like Tilde, and maintained that peculiar regal bearing as she stood in a bastardized third position, front foot practically en pointe. In the boardroom, the stance probably made her look poised and fierce. Standing in the dress shop, she looked like some sort of deranged, hissing goose dressed in a power pantsuit from Rodeo Drive.

It should have made Astrid laugh, but she maintained a straight face. She had, after all, been bit by that goose before.

Astrid rolled her shoulders back and glided across the room to her mother, not expecting open arms, but foolishly wishing for them anyway. Like always. Her mother’s steel grey eyes narrowed at her, dipping down her body. The fine lines around her mouth pursed for a minute, then relaxed.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Astrid said.

She ignored her mother and pushed further into the dress shop when Tilde called out. Tilde was already standing on a low pedestal as a seamstress slowly circled around her, straight pins in the woman’s mouth as she made last-minute tailoring changes to the princess-line skirt.

The dress itself was… something. Beautiful wasn’t the right word, really. Resplendent. Gorgeous. Somehow it was big and white and everything that screamed  _Tilde!_  without swallowing her up or hiding her beauty. Astrid had never seen a more perfect melding of dress and wearer. It was hard for Astrid to take her eyes off Tilde’s glowing face. But then, it had always been difficult to do that. Tilde exuded so much vitality all the time; she hadn’t become a prima ballerina for nothing.

“Oh! Astrid! There you are!” Tilde squealed, trying to hop off the pedestal, but volumes of silk organza slowed her movements.

Astrid laughed at her struggle. “Stay there. Don’t piss off the nice lady pining you. You’ll have blood all over it.”

“Blood is no good!” the seamstress shrieked. “I think we’re done, anyhow. Pauline will go to change you.”

Tilde made a face in the mirror, and with some help from a few shop workers, moved back to what Astrid supposed were the changing rooms.  The seamstress looked at her over half-moon spectacles, taking a few pins from her mouth and placing them in the pincushion on her wrist.

“Are you the maid of honor?”

Astrid nodded. “I am.”

“Ah,” said the seamstress, stepping off the dais and walking to a rack Astrid hadn’t noticed before. Hanging on the rack was a sparkly golden dress, high-necked and cap-sleeved, but designed in an unforgiving mermaid silhouette. There’d be no hiding her flaws in that thing. “We will fit you next.”

Astrid bit her lip and moved closer to the dress—her dress—assessing it further. It was a beautiful garment, designed by one of her favorite designers, but she couldn’t imagine looking good in something like this. It was too form fitting… and, honestly, it looked too small. She was sure the seamstress thought the exact same thing when the older woman turned to eye her body, her brows furrowing together and mouth flattening into a thin line.

“It’s okay,” the seamstress said, inching closer to her conspiratorially. “We’ll fix it for you.”

Because that was exactly what Astrid  _didn’t_  want to hear.

Before she could speak again, she was in a dressing room with a mound of body shapers piled in her arms. Astrid was a realist, after all, and had planned on wearing something underneath her dress—fuck, she wasn’t an idiot and knew how to smooth out her curves a bit. But this was ridiculous. These things were literally steel-boned full-torso corsets… and not the fun or flirty kind, either. They could double as support girders in a fucking high rise somewhere.

Could it get any worse?

And when they helped her put one on, to try it out, she couldn’t breathe.  “I’m sorry, I can’t wear this thing,” she told the dresser helping her.

The dresser frowned. “But the dress…”

“I brought my Spanx,” Astrid said, pointing at her purse on the opposite wall.

The dresser was not at all optimistic. “Well, I guess we can try it with those.”

And so they did, but as soon as she stepped into the dress and barely shimmied it over her wide hips, she knew it wasn’t going to work. The dresser disappeared, leaving Astrid to turn in the mirror to see just how many inches of bare skin remained between each side of the zipper up her back. There wasn’t a lot of skin, but there was enough.

Yeah, there was no fixing that easily.

When no one returned, Astrid sank down into one of the empty seats lining the wall, but not before a loud  _RRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP_  ricocheted in the quiet room. It felt like all the air in the shop had been sucked out into a vacuum. Her heart stopped for a good ten seconds as she listened to the sudden silence surrounding her, just knowing they’d all heard it. They were either all too shocked speechless to say anything or the blood suddenly pounding in her ears had blocked out the worried cries from distraught seamstresses flying to her side.

There was a light tap at the door. It was Tilde. “Can I come in?”

Astrid heaved a breath, blinking her eyes to stop the sudden stinging. She was  _not_  going to cry. What even was the point of all that hard work at the gym if it was for nothing? First, shut down by her Wadsworth, and now this?

“Yeah, come in,” Astrid replied around the thick emotion threatening to spill out of her.

Tilde slid into the room and shut the door behind her, making a quick assessment of the situation. First the dress, then Astrid, and wasted no time closing the distance between them to pull her sister into her arms. “Oh, Astrid, don’t worry. Please. We’ll get it figured out.”

“B-but,” Astrid stuttered, sucking back her tears. Her cheeks burned, and her eyes were watering now, stinging, filling up around the edges.  _I am_ not _going to cry, damn it!_  “We have two weeks, Tilde. They can’t fix this in two weeks. Not if it took them five months to even make the first one!”

“They can and they will,” she said.

Astrid shivered. “I don’t even know how this happened, Til. I had the measurements done by a real dressmaker. And I’ve  _lost_  inches since then.”

“I don’t know, babe,” Tilde replied. She stepped back and set her hands on each of Astrid’s cheeks, forcing Astrid to look at her. “Please don’t cry. Just breathe.”

Astrid shook her head. “I’m supposed to be doing this for  _you_ , not the other way around!”

Tilde waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve had constant contact with the designer and clothiers, Astrid. And I’ve had fittings all along the way. You haven’t. I’m not surprised my dress is pretty much perfect and yours isn’t.”

 _And you’re also a size negative zero_ , Astrid thought bitterly.

The seamstress burst into the room then, carrying with her a piece of paper, crinkled and stained with coffee rings. On it were a list of measurements. “We were told these were your measurements. See? Listed here, Astrid Petersen for the Petersen-Norton wedding.”

All the torso circumference measurements were off by at least two inches. “Those aren’t the measurements I sent.”

“Who did you send them to?” the seamstress asked.

And that was when her stomach bottomed out and stayed at her feet. She felt sick, like she was about to puke, but because she didn’t have breakfast, it wasn’t even worth it. Had this really happened? She’d sent all the measurements to her mother, who had overseen coordinating the dresses. Could her mother really do this?

“I need to see Mom,” Astrid told Tilde. “ _Now!_ ”

Tilde blanched, a silent  _no_  forming on her lips before she covered her mouth with a hand. But she turned on her toes, anyway, presumably to get their mother. She stopped, though. “I meant to say, too… Tom’s here.”

Great. Just fucking great. She hadn’t messaged him to pick her up yet. Had he heard the rip? The commotion? What was Beatrice whispering to him out there?

“Why the hell is  _he_  here?”

“He said he was running errands nearby and said it was just easier to stop here instead of going home and waiting,” Tilde said. “What do you want me to tell him?”

Astrid groaned. That would teach her to ask the Universe if things could get worse; without a doubt, they certainly could. “That I’ll be out in a little while. Send Mom.”

Tilde bowed her head in acknowledgement and quickly shot out of the room.

Astrid looked over at the seamstress, who looked apologetic, but Astrid was the one who felt sheepish. “I’m so sorry we’re such trouble.”

“Don’t worry,” the seamstress said softly, placing a comforting hand on Tilde’s arm. “How about we get you out of the dress now? No reason to be walking around with it on.”

Carefully, so as not to cause any more damage, the seamstress helped her out of the dress and placed the glittering fabric over one of her arms. Astrid also shimmied out of the Spanx, knowing she wouldn’t need it again today. She wrapped her body in the silk robe they offered her with the Elie Saab logo over the pocket just as her mother stepped into the room.

“What did you do to my measurements?” Astrid asked.

Her mother held her hands out defensively. “I thought—”

“Will you excuse us for a minute?” Astrid asked the seamstress, who really deserved a name at this point for being so even keeled about the whole ordeal, but she didn’t think to ask before the woman left the room, the door slightly ajar. Astrid looked back at her mother. “Why would you do that?”

“Well, your father said that you were visiting a gym regularly when he was in Las Vegas last and that you looked smaller, so I thought—”

Astrid scoffed. “You thought what? You’d just humiliate me when it didn’t fit?”

“Look,” she said, “the size shouldn’t be that different. You have two weeks. Lorraine—you remember Lorraine, right? My PA? Well she did this juice cleanse just before the Oscars this year and lost like twenty pounds in two weeks. We can get you on it and you’ll be perfect for the dress.”

Astrid wanted to curl up and die, right there in the dressing room. Nothing was ever enough for this woman. Why couldn’t it ever be enough? “I’m not doing any of your ridiculous juice cleanses!”

Her mother shrugged. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be such a drama queen, then! I simply thought you would be smaller by this time, so, in the order of expediency, I edited the numbers. It’s not my fault you lost motivation and haven’t lost it all.”

“Get out!” Astrid hissed, pointing at the door, wishing she’d just go so Astrid could get a good cry in before facing Tom. At this point, after last night and this morning, she needed it. No, she  _deserved_  it. When her mother stared her down, Astrid repeated, “GET… OUT!”

“Astrid, don’t mistake me. I’ve only ever had your best interests at heart,” she said. “I’m your mother, for crying out loud! I was excited you were finally trying to improve your health. And I wanted you to look beautiful at Tilde’s wedding. Maybe I got carried away.”

Astrid bit down on her lip to stop herself from saying anything else, but the action was too hard. The tang of a drop of blood filled her mouth. Astrid swallowed and licked her stinging lip. 

“Just leave. Please,” she begged, but not before catching movement out of the corner of her eye, through the crack of the door that stood ajar.

A light knock made her really look. The movement was attached to a long leg and a black jacket, masculine in their appearance; Tom had come back to the room. God, how much had  _he_  heard? Her humiliation was complete.

“What do you want!” she snarled, pulling open the door with a vehemence that satisfied her. It also pulled the tie on her waist loose and opened the gap of her dressing gown. It wasn’t much to see, really. Beige granny panties and a boring beige full coverage bra—the benefit of a high necked gown was the ability to wear undergarments that actually supported her assets. Still, his eyes didn’t waste the opportunity to drop a curious look at her body while her mother scoffed openly in the background.

“Jesus, Astrid, close your robe,” she said. “He doesn’t want to see that.”

It took everything within Astrid not to shout to the world that he  _had_  seen that, and a whole lot more. She wanted to witness the look of horror on her mother’s face when it came to light Astrid, dumpy boring Astrid, had once slept with gorgeous Tom—and she’d been about one-and-a-half dress sizes larger at the time.

However, something stopped her when she looked at him. Maybe it was the spark of hunger that raged in the sea-green depths of his gaze, the small lick of his bottom lip, or the heat that ignited between them, so hot she felt it even two feet apart. Whatever it was, the cold that had been there when he’d pushed her away the night before seemed to have disappeared, and Astrid wanted to keep Hawaii a secret, between them, just for a little longer. Even if it meant not getting back at her mother.

But, she also thought, her traitorous self-talk creeping up, that Tom could want her silence anyway. Maybe he didn’t want to admit to the world that he slept with fat girls, much less that he also liked to dominate them. She supposed, though, that was also ridiculous. Their conversation last night should have been enough to confirm what he really thought about her—that he had wanted more at one time. Yet this knowledge didn’t stop the stupid voice in her head sounding suspiciously like her mother, though Beatrice’s lips remained in a tight grimace.

Tom straightened his back and stuck his hands into his pockets. He cleared his throat. “It’s nearly one, Astrid. Your email said we were to pick up the engraved iPads then.”

Astrid closed her eyes and sighed. “Fuck, yes. I’m sorry, Tom. I was late getting here and then this shit happened.”

He looked past her into the room, where her mother stood. He nodded at Beatrice. “Let me go get the order. Tilde said she’d get you to my place to do what we need to over there.”

“Right,” Astrid said. “I guess I’ll see you in a bit, then.”

He stopped to look back at her after he turned on a heel. “Have you had lunch yet? I can pick something up on the way back.”

“No,” she replied, noticing his eyes flick over to her mother for a moment. A challenge. Defiance. Astrid wanted to kiss him. “I’m starving, actually.”

“Italian?” he asked. “And tiramisu for dessert?”

“Oh my god, yes,” Astrid replied. She needed the comfort food.

Beatrice shifted uncomfortably in the background. Astrid didn’t have to turn around to look at her; she felt the shift of power as it transferred to Tom.

She loved this man. Okay, maybe not  _loved_ , but definitely liked him. Even though he must have heard everything, it was nice having him on her side. She figured she could do much worse than having such an ally.

“If you get there before I do, make yourself at home,” he said before finally leaving.

Compelled, finally, to tie her robe, Astrid turned back to her mother with the heat of a blush warming her cheeks. Her mother, in return, narrowed her eyes and stepped in closer, dropping her voice to a terse whisper. “I don’t know what you think that was, but he’s not interested in you.”

Astrid tried brushing the words off, pushing past her mother again.

Beatrice stopped her with a vice grip on her arm. “I’m serious, Astrid. Madeleine has been over here for the past month on a project and says she and Tom have gone out a few times after Tilde introduced them.”

A knife to her heart, that. Madeleine, her six-foot Amazon of a cousin, pitch black hair, a striking mix of her father’s English and her mother’s Cuban roots. She actually sort of respected Madeleine, but only because she hadn’t become a model like everyone expected her to. Instead, she went to school, got an MBA, and now worked for the family production company as a serious professional. Otherwise, though, she was a major bitch.

They were invariably courting him for a role in a new movie, if Madeleine had got her claws into him and Beatrice knew about it. But who was Astrid to say it wasn’t real? Maybe they  _had_  hit it off? She didn’t know Tom, after all. And Madeleine, well, Maddy would seamlessly fit into the life of a famous actor’s girlfriend.

Astrid would not.

“Would you please leave the dressing room?” Astrid asked, now fully deflated.

Her mother cast her another reproachful look and disappeared out the door, leaving Astrid to feel bad for herself. Why did she let her mother get to her? Every damn time? And why did it hurt so much that Tom had moved on? Why couldn’t she have done so, too?

Fortunately, the seamstress returned with a cloth measuring tape and a determined expression, ready to take Astrid’s true measurements. Only with the seamstress’—Astrid discovered her name was Lyudmila—assurance that everything would be ready by the wedding did Astrid finally, blissfully leave the torture of the dress shop with Tilde…

 _Without_  their mother, but with a whole host of new worries.


	5. Talk Turkey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is crazy, but I love you all. Thank you for reading and sticking by during this slow updating!

**Chapter 5 – Talk Turkey**

 

His house was silent when he returned juggling lunch in one hand and a heavy load of iPad boxes in the other. There were still twenty more boxes left in his car, but they’d have to wait to be brought in once he verified that Astrid had arrived. As it was, the boxes barely fit in the boot and rear seat of his Jag, but he’d Tetris-ed the shit out of those things to make it home, quite proud of himself for making it work without needing a second trip.

If there was one thing he didn’t want to do today, it was to further disappoint or upset Astrid. After everything he had witnessed at the dress shop, he refused to be the cause of more pain for her. She’d had quite enough of that. Frankly,  _he’d_  had quite enough of that and had removed himself from the situation before he let loose on Beatrice or made a bad situation worse.

He, however, couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t, at some point over the next fortnight, let her have it. No matter how he and Astrid were getting along, no human deserved to be abused so terribly by their own parent. In fact, it was already making him reconsider the contract he was due to sign for a new movie spearheaded by Starshine Productions, the Winthrop family’s company.

There were more important things on his mind now, though. Like apologizing to Astrid for his behavior the previous evening. Especially since it was starting to make sense why she wanted no part of her family’s claim to fame. What had her life been like that she completely cut it out in her adulthood?

“Astrid?” he called, hoping she’d already arrived and she simply wasn’t making much noise wherever she was. “You here?”

He heard her faint voice float in from the direction of his living room, so he turned left rather than right into the kitchen. He found her standing in front of his bookshelves, her back to him, shifting her weight back and forth on the balls of her feet. As she rocked up on her tiptoes, she reached for an old book on a high shelf and came back down.

“You have a lot of classical literature in here,” she said, peeking back at him and opening the cover of his well-loved copy of  _Electra_. The tip of her pink tongue flicked out against her index finger, then she used the finger to flip through a few pages. She hummed and snorted. “In Ancient Greek, too.  _Of course_  you would know Ancient Greek.”

“I have a double first in Classics,” he replied.

Finally, she looked up at him. Even from across the room, he noted the red-rimmed eyes and puffy face. Her blemish-free skin was now blotchy. She looked absolutely wretched—and she certainly hadn’t looked like that when he left the dress shop. Had something else happened? Or was all that emotion from before?

“So you aren’t all beauty, after all.” She smirked, but even that mirth didn’t reach her eyes. “Where from?”

“Cambridge.”

“Of course, why wouldn’t you have gone to Cambridge?” she replied with an eye roll, acting like she thought she should have expected something like that. Like everything about him screamed ‘privileged ponce’ and she should have figured it out before now. Maybe he  _was_ a privileged ponce. “It certainly explains a few things.”

“Like?”

Astrid shrugged and turned around again, but not before pushing the book back into the shelf where it belonged.  She dropped back onto her feet and left the sitting area. “The food smells amazing. Let’s eat.”

Tom frowned. He wanted more than that from her. He wanted to know what she thought about this information. Was she glad to learn about him? Learn who he really was? Something real as opposed to all those omissions he made and half-baked truths he told in Hawaii?

Maybe he’d jumped to conclusions last night. Maybe it was the high level of emotion that came with ending a show like  _Hamlet_  mixed in with feeling physically run down that he’d let it all coalesce in such an unfortunate manner.  He had behaved poorly toward her, bombarding her and arguing with her, and then leaving her cold. Never,  _ever,_  would he have otherwise considered handling the situation like that. She deserved a chance to defend herself before he jumped to conclusions.

Even now, he couldn’t figure out why he’d pushed her away when she’d tried to kiss him. He had thought of little else for months after they parted in Hawaii, even after he said he moved on from her. If he were  _really_  truthful with himself, he even thought about it when he was kissing other women, perhaps the reason why none of those relationships went anywhere or why his life crashed into such a fiery heap in so short a time. And now that he finally had a chance at it again, he’d gone and been an absolute wanker.

In some small part of his brain, he still couldn’t quite trust her, no matter how much he wanted to. It wasn’t fair to blame her for all the troubles he had encountered over the past eighteen months, but he couldn’t help but wonder where he might be now if it hadn’t all happened like this.

For one, he would have never made such a short-sighted decision at the Met Gala barely two months after Hawaii.

If only she had called…

“Will you take the iPads and put them on the table?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” she said, grabbing the stack of five boxes. She set them down. “I hope they gave you more than that.”

He smiled. “In my car. I’m glad the police didn’t stop me for speeding, or they’d think I robbed an Apple store.”

Astrid chuckled. “I’m sure they wouldn’t think you robbed an Apple store. According to all reports, you’re supposedly a real stand up guy.”

“What reports?” he asked.

“Just reports,” she said.

Tom shrugged and clenched his jaw. He tried to be as “stand up” as she insinuated, but sometimes he worried he wasn’t living up to his own high standards. And, unfortunately, the general public seemed to agree with that these days. Amazing what a few bad tabloid stories and a few more poor life decisions could do. “You’d be surprised what people think about me these days.”

Astrid frowned at him, shifting again on her feet. He glanced down at her legs as she did, noting the obnoxiously bright leggings with cartoon frogs stamped all over them. They were absolutely horrid, but completely amazing at the same time. He wasn’t one to judge fashion choices, after all. His fans saw fit to make sure of that.

She fidgeted again, this time drawing his attention back to her face and those fathomless grey eyes, now dull and sad after her horrible morning. He needed to make her smile again, somehow. He much preferred them when they shimmered like liquid mercury.

“It’s my teaching wardrobe,” she said by way of explanation, tugging at the sleeve of her black dress.

“That sort of thing is acceptable over there for teachers?”

She scoffed. “You went to prep school, didn’t you? Where all your teachers wore suits?”

“Robes,” he replied. “But yes, suits underneath.”

“Well, in ‘Murica, we get to sit on the floor with our little sprogs and play with them, so we need comfort in our wardrobe,” she said.

Tom sniffed comically, hoping to convey the right amount of the trademark British stiff upper lip and crustiness. “What will you heathen colonials come up with next?”

“Republicans.”

“We have those, too,” he added. “We call them the Conservative Party, though.”

Finally, she laughed. It went straight to his dick. He loved making her laugh, seeing her smile. Most of all, the timbre of her voice, smooth and feminine, was like silk against his ears. Not grating at all like some squeaky chirping bird. “Okay, you win.”

Tom grinned. “I always do.”

She rolled her eyes again. “I set out plates and utensils for the food in the kitchen… I hope you don’t mind.”

“I did say make yourself at home,” he remarked, nodding toward the hallway that led to the kitchen and the small dining table and chairs in there.

“I was really just snooping around trying to figure you out,” she added, as though testing him.

Tom laughed. “Find anything interesting?”

Astrid shrugged her shoulders again. “Nothing much. Except now I know you are a packrat and keep everything until it’s literally falling apart.”

“You went into my wardrobe, huh?”

“No, should I have?” she teased. “I figured your room was upstairs, so I didn’t go up there.”

“How can you figure a guy out without seeing his bedroom?” he asked.

Tom dropped the food on the kitchen table and turned to look at her. She was smiling at him, the shimmer of her eyes slowly returning. The muscles in her face were less tense now. God, but she was gorgeous. As gorgeous as he remembered in Hawaii, but somehow more so. The dark hair suited her terribly well. And the black dress she wore with those ridiculous leggings smoothed around her voluptuous curves like a second skin. He wondered how such a thing could be workplace appropriate because he was terribly distracted.

Or maybe he was the only one that saw how well it molded to her body. Certainly, he was one of the few who had noticed it today.

Astrid nibbled thoughtfully on her lower lip. “After last night, I…”

“You… what?”

She shrugged and reached for the bag of food, but he stopped her with his hand covering hers. She tensed immediately and darted her eyes up to his, sucking in a gasp of air.

“Tell me what you were going to say,” he coaxed, stepping closer to her She was an open book; he loved how responsive she was with him.

Astrid swallowed. “I didn’t think it was appropriate to invade your privacy like that.”

“But rooting through my cupboards was?” He hoped it sounded teasing enough. He didn’t care where she went because he had nothing to hide.

“You’re confusing me.”

He sighed. So, clearly not teasing enough. “How so?”

Her lips tightened into a firm line, aging her otherwise youthful face. “You wanted nothing to do with me. You pushed me away last night.”

“You ran from me at the pub, first,” he said.

“Only because of the way you spoke to me before the show.”

She wasn’t telling him everything she felt last night; he knew that as well as he knew he still felt the same way that he had when he left her in her condo that morning in Kauai. That was why it hurt him so much to believe she lied about knowing who he was.

Last night, she had relaxed against him when he’d pressed her back into the stone column; he showed her how attracted to her he was by allowing her to sense the irrepressible erection that grew every time her lush body was anywhere near his. Her breathing had shallowed out, her pupils had dilated. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew he still had power over her sexually, though she may not have been entirely pleased with how he had received her before or after the show. Flustering her happened to be one of his greatest enjoyments—and memories.

“You also weren’t very nice with your insinuation that I lied to you,” she said.

He sighed and let his eyes rove over her face, tracing the lines of worry wrinkling her forehead before flicking his attention to her plump lips. Fuck, did he want to taste them. Despite it all, he wanted her now as much as he had wanted her in Hawaii.

He finally met her eyes. “I may have been rash in what I said last night. I was tired and I let it blindside me.”

Astrid shook off his hand… the one that was still holding hers on the handle of the brown paper bag of food. Then she stepped away from him, sucking all the heat away. “Doesn’t mean what was said wasn’t the truth and what happened wasn’t what you intended.”

“It  _isn’t_  the truth,” he said.

“Then what is?”

“The truth is that I fucking want you more than anything else in the world right now—and I did last night, even when I thought you had lied to me,” he admitted. “But I don’t see any reason to let my cock make my decisions for me when we both know it’s not going anywhere after the wedding.”

It was the truth. He was tired of meaningless trysts.  _She_  had made him realize that eighteen months ago. What was more, he’d tried to fill the sizable gap she had left in his life with a woman who couldn’t adequately refill—and never would have adequately refilled—it. That was his problem, yes, but she’d still sparked his need for something  _more_. He’d lost all hope and now that he saw it glimmering in the distance, he wondered if it was even worth it to let himself hope that he might find the  _more_  he was looking for.

Astrid scoffed and threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Then why the heck are we still discussing this? We move on, I don’t look in your bedroom, and we do our part for our friends and sisters. Then I go back to Las Vegas and you return to your work and we forget about each other.”

“That’s the problem,” he said lowly, feeling the air around them shift again, growing heavier, but not oppressive. It was something else entirely. “You’re always going to be there, because you’re always going to be connected to James and Tilde, and I’m always going to be tempted.”

“And you think I won’t?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You seem to be okay letting me go,” he said. “Maybe  _that’s_  why you didn’t think it was important to check out the bedroom.”

Her hands balled into fists and rested on her hips in a posture of defiance. “How does this have anything to do with looking in your bedroom?”

“How does any of this argument have to do with looking in my bedroom? I’m only trying to apologize here,” he said, trying a different tack. “Explain my thinking to you, so you understand why I pushed you away.”

“But you still want me to discover who you are from your bedroom?” Astrid shook her head in incredulity. “What? Did you want to come back home and have me naked in your bed and begging you to take me?”

Wait… what? He was so confused. She stomped past him, and he watched her go, not knowing what she was about to do. It probably shouldn’t have surprised him when she began climbing the stairs up to his bedroom, stomping her feet heavily on each step for good measure.

“Astrid, please, you don’t have to,” he said, going after her. “Forget about the bloody bedroom. This argument is ridiculous.”

“No, Wadsworth,  _you_ are ridiculous.”

He harrumphed but followed her up the last few stairs and into his bedroom. A part of him was glad he wasn’t a messy person, but he did wish he’d spent more time making his bed this morning. His mum would be aghast at its disarray.

“How am  _I_  ridiculous?” He watched her take in the room, her eyes roving over the bed, his nightstand. The chest of drawers by the large picture window littered with cufflinks and a few cologne bottles.

“Aren’t you the king of one-night stands or something? Isn’t that what you said in Hawaii?” she asked, slipping past him into the bathroom. She flipped on a light and looked around. “Oh, geez, looks just like your standard bathroom. The toilet seat’s up. Clearly, you piss just like every other man on the planet.”

“I don’t think I said it quite like that,” he replied.

Astrid snorted and moved past him to the other side of the room and his wardrobe. She pulled out a drawer, then closed it without looking. She did it again. “I don’t get you. You said you liked no strings attached.”  _Open, close._  “I gave you no strings attached and now you’re all butthurt,”  _open_ , “that I didn’t call you and you’re… ‘oh, woe is me’ about things I didn’t tell you in Hawaii. Seems to me you didn’t tell me a whole lot, either.”

_Close._

Finally, she stopped and looked back at him, her fists returning to her hips.

“Please, Astrid…”

“Well, look here, Buster,” she said, advancing on him, her finger poking into his chest. She was fucking magnificent when she was angry, the color high in her cheeks, her eyes snapping with fire. “ _You’re_  the one that came up with the rules. I’m just playing by them, and if you don’t like it, then too bad.”

And that was it. He couldn’t take it anymore. Not with her so close, not with the scent of her soft perfume filling his nose. Fuck, he wanted her. No, he  _craved_  her. He needed to feel her velvet skin and supple lips. He slipped his fingers into her silky hair and held her steady long enough to drop his lips to hers with a punishing force. A muffled mewl edged out of her mouth, opening her lips, giving him the opportunity he required to sweep his tongue against hers.

That was when she sagged against him, falling against his chest, grabbing his jacket lapels for purchase to keep herself upright. He wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her tight against him, a vice around her torso so she couldn’t escape, though she didn’t seem to be trying to do that.

Until she bit his lip. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but it was enough that he was shocked by the pain and flinched away for a millisecond long enough. She pushed away from him, fury and lust filling those damn eyes. Her face was now flushed and her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.

“Two weeks,” she said, holding up two fingers.

He growled. “Astrid, please…”

She shook her head and dropped her hands to her waist, stopping on the silver belt buckle there. “And no one knows. Not even James or Tilde.  I mean  _no one._ ”

“What about what  _I_ want?” he asked.

“You mean you don’t want  _this_?” The belt dropped to her side, followed by the black dress as she moved back toward the bed.

A whining moan filled his throat. “Two weeks won’t be long enough. I want more than—”

“I can’t… I can’t do more than that.”

Tom sighed in frustration. 

“What is it ol’ Shakes says?” Astrid smirked at him, pausing when her calves hit the bed.  

She stuck her thumbs in either side of her leggings and quickly shimmied them to her feet. Her shoes came off with the leggings as she kicked them aside. Her underthings were the most hideous, functional undergarments he’d ever seen… but they were somehow still beautiful on her luscious body.

“I don’t know,” he breathed, holding his breath as she reached behind her for the hooks on her bra. When that, too, was gone, he licked his lips. God, he wanted to feast on their bounty. Eighteen months had been too long to wait for a taste.

And two weeks  _definitely_ wasn’t going to be enough to make up for it. Not ever.

He closed the distance between them again, his hands digging into the flesh of her hips. He couldn’t control himself. In fact, there wasn’t enough blood in his brain to draw from his knowledge of Shakespeare, as she had alluded. “What does he say?”

“I think he says, ‘tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’,” she murmured against his mouth, her arms circling his neck. Then her hands moved south, spreading out against his pecs and slipping over his shoulders under his coat. She pushed the coat off and to the floor, leaving him otherwise fully dressed.

He used the moment to push her back. She landed with a bounce, but was up in an instant, scrambling her way back, and crooking a finger at him to join her. This wasn’t what he’d planned. He knew it wasn’t a good idea. How was he ever going to watch her walk away after two weeks? Why couldn’t she just get over her problems with Hollywood? If she did, then anything was possible, wasn’t it?

He crawled over her, setting a knee between her thighs and placing a kiss at the band of her knickers before drawing the tip of his nose all the way up her torso, through the valley between her breasts, and up her neck. He nipped playfully at her chin. Resting his weight on his hands, he held himself above her, looking down, watching her face.

Tom didn’t know why he continued to protest. Staying away from her was a losing battle, just as feeling nothing for her was. Lies, half-truths, time limits, or not… his heart knew this was inevitable. His whole body knew it.

“I like your beard,” she murmured, lifting her hands to his face, drawing her delicate fingertips through the short wiry hairs as they circled around his head and buried in his long curls. “And your longer hair.”

He closed his eyes, luxuriating in her fingers as they combed across his scalp. A pleasurable shiver worked its way up his spine. “I don’t think it’s fair that you’re using Shakespeare against me.”

She giggled softly, exerting the slightest of forces on his head to pull his mouth to hers. With a sigh, she opened up to him again.

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because you know my weaknesses,” he said. “And I haven’t the faintest idea what yours are.”

Her lips curled into a grin. “I think they’re pretty obvious.”

She dropped her hands to the button of his jeans, and in a flash, he was blessedly free, trousers and pants pushed down to his thighs, with her palm grasping his cock. A strangled groan gurgled from deep in his throat. He shut his eyes for a moment, centering and convincing himself not to come… because he knew, with all the certainty in the world, that he wasn’t going to last for any appropriate length of time.

He lifted away from her dangerous hands, and grabbed the waist of her knickers, pulling them down and off her legs in one smooth movement. He licked his lips when he saw how wet she already was; she positively glistened for him. It made him realize, truly, that if she had wanted nothing to do with him, then she wouldn’t have these reactions.

She sat up and met his mouth again, murmuring against his lips, “I need you inside me  _now_.”

“Good,” he hummed, “because _I_  need to be inside  _you_.”

He reached over her for his nightstand, thanking the stars he still had some condoms left in there. It’d been long enough, that he hadn’t made a survey of how many he still had on hand. But he’d see to that later, focusing his attention on rolling the condom down his length, pumping his fist experimentally along his length…

Yes, this wasn’t going to last long.

Astrid laid back on the bed and looked up at him, and he was momentarily struck stupid as he watched the path of her right hand tweak a nipple and travel down her belly before stopping at her mound. She spread her thighs, and dipped her fingers into her folds, shuddering and moaning at the contact.

“Mmm,” he said. “I like watching you do that.”

Her face turned a deeper red, from lust and bashfulness. “I’ve had a lot of practice since Hawaii, closing my eyes and trying to remember how you felt…” the words stopped briefly with a soft moan replacing them, “here.”

The “here” drew out as she said it on another cry of pleasure.

“Well, now you don’t have to remember,” he replied, leaning back over her, spreading her legs further to insinuate himself between her thighs. Her back arched as the head of his cock brushed against her clit and slipped down, lodging solidly in her tight opening.

Her hands grabbed the back of his shirt and ripped it over his head. The jeans… well, those were just going to stay put, because there was no way in hell he was leaving the slick heat of her body now.

He shifted onto his knees and slipped his hands beneath her rear before lifting her hips onto his bent thighs, pulling her further onto him, driving into her, inch by blessed inch. It took everything to control the tightening of his balls, to refrain from orgasming.

“This isn’t going to be slow or kind, Astrid,” he warned, flicking his thumb against her clit.

She howled like a banshee, her body twisting and arching, the movement completely sheathing him in blissful heat. “Fuck, it better not be after that.”

He didn’t need more incentive, though he did begin with two languid thrusts, letting her fully accommodate to him before he dug his fingers into her hips in earnest and pounded her into the mattress.

She clawed at his chest, then his back when he finally bent over to reclaim her lips for himself, pistoning his hips forcefully into her more than compliant body. There were going to be scratch marks left over, but he drove her further, pinning her hips to the bed, plunging hard and stopping at the hilt, grinding down against her mons. The pressure against her clit made her squeal, made her explode around him.

Her body clamped down even though he tried to move again, in then out, and then he couldn’t hold back anymore. The white-hot spike of pleasure flooded every neuron in his body and he came like a fucking freight train.

Tom collapsed on the bed beside her, sweaty, panting for air, but not sated. He didn’t know if he  _could_  be sated where she was concerned. But even if he wanted to go again right away, he needed a minute. They  _both_  needed a minute, if not to breathe, then definitely to figure out how this was going to work and where they went from here.


End file.
